which they attack by sitting with their hind pairs of legs on the stem
under a leaf, and swinging around chewing a piece out of each of the veins
under the leaf, causing the leaf to collapse umbrella-like around them.

The larvae are green with a number of faint white
lines along the animal's length.
They also sometimes have black dots along the sides.
Some of their ventralprolegs
are missing and this makes them move looper fashion, like
the Caterpillars of
GEOMETRIDAE.
They grow to a length of about 4 cms.

(Photo: Don Herbison-Evans, Concord, New South Wales)

The pupa is formed under a curled leaf of the foodplant
in a sparse cocoon. It is green,
often with brown markings which often curiously resemble a face.
Pupal duration varies from about a fortnight in summer
to about a month in winter.

The adult moth is dark grey-brown,
with bunched hairs on its head which
look like a short pair of horns.
Males have long orange hair-like scales on either side
of the abdomen, which are distinctive for this species,
and these are probably the origin of the scientific name,
as in Greek, erith = red, and soma = body.
On each fore wing of males and females is a silvery figure of eight
with the two halves separated, unlike the related species
Chrysodeixis subsidens
in which they are fused together.
The absence of a tiny silver 's' on the fore wings distinguishes
it from another related species:
Chrysodeixis argentifera.
They all have a wingspan of about 3 cms.